


Close Enough

by cat_77



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Gen, Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-01-31 13:48:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21447199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cat_77/pseuds/cat_77
Summary: The bad guys didn’t get what they wanted and the good guys were finally there.  He wasn’t home yet, but he was pretty damn close.
Relationships: John Sheppard & Stargate Atlantis Team
Comments: 1
Kudos: 59





	Close Enough

**Author's Note:**

> For the "torture" entry at hc_bingo. Yes, it's been a while since I posted anything in this fandom.
> 
> * * *

“On your feet!” a voice bellowed. It was a nice voice, kind of deep, it echoed a little which distorted it in interesting ways. Solid six out of ten, maybe edging up on a seven.

The command was repeated and Sheppard tried not to roll his eyes. Even those hurt at this point, much like any and all parts of him and any action he attempted to do up to and including breathing. “Tried that,” he reminded the void with more slur than words as he still couldn’t see any actual person yet. “Didn’t work.”

“Oh, for… Can you try to get him? We’ll cover,” another voice said. He was pretty sure it was another voice as it didn’t echo quite the same. Reverberation. That was the word he was looking for.

“Hey, man, you gotta get up if you’re going to get out of here. I’ll work on the door, but you need to do your part.” Yep, definitely the first voice. That meant there was two voices. He’d say that meant he was hearing voices but he knew that was frowned upon if he wanted to keep his commission. 

There was a very loud sound. A very loud sound that echoed even more than the voices did. Even the ground seemed to shake with that one and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the source of it but kind of figured he would soon enough. He had discovered the sources of a lot of things in the past however long it had been, and learned that most of them could be tied to his captors and, also, that they all sucked.

There was finally light instead of the dim murkiness that he had grown accustomed to. For about half a second before most of that light was obscured by a massive form. He’d say the form was familiar, but he couldn’t actually focus his eyes enough to see any details to truly make that claim. The form moved now, and made the light flicker and almost shimmer as it tried to get around it.

“Oh, hey, you have a gun instead of sharp things this time. Does that mean we’re almost done?” he asked. “Not that the heavy things didn’t also suck, but the sharp ones sucked the most, you know?”

The form froze at that, almost highlighted perfectly all framed by the door and everything. It reached upwards super slowly before a bright light shined directly in his thankfully almost swollen completely closed eyes. “We’re going to need a medic on standby,” the form with the voice called. 

It leaned close, not that there was a lot of room in his little box-like place, and its features were finally lit enough that he could figure out why it was so familiar. “You’re Ronon! Hiya buddy!”

“How badly are you hurt?” the form he now remembered as a friend asked.

The words didn’t quite make sense though. “Am I supposed to be goodly hurt? Is that a thing?”

There was a huff, both from next to him and from just outside the doorway. The second voice called out, “You know your commanding officer is insane, right? This isn’t a surprise to you?”

John frowned. “That’s not a nice thing to say about the Colonel.” He paused as that didn’t seem right. “Wait, is he still in charge? Or is it the IOA now?” His memories were beyond a little fuzzy at the moment. Then again, that may have been a good thing as he was fairly certain there were things he really didn’t want to remember.

Very large hands patted him down with a little too much force to be comfortable. They were warm and a little rough against his exposed skin, of which there was a lot of as he had been left in only an undershirt and his boxers way too long ago. Maybe they weren’t actually warm and he was just cold, it was hard to tell. “He’s not wired, but I think there’s more blood outside of him than in,” Ronon advised. 

John barely paid attention to whatever else he said. He was far too amused by his own joke and decide to share it with the rest of the class. If Ronon was there, that meant there was probably other good guys nearby. “IOA: In Our Asses. Get it? Because they are always in everything?”

He grunted as he was suddenly airborne. Kind of. Ronon had picked him up, one arm under his legs and one arm bracing his back. He took a moment to wonder where his gun went as it was a nice gun and he was fairly certain he wouldn’t leave it behind, not just for him. Maybe for some good beer, but that’s about it.

“You carrying him bridal-style?” the second voice scoffed. “How bad can he-” The voice cut off suddenly as Ronon stepped out of the room and out to where the others waited. “Bridal’s good. He ain’t walking on those feet.”

He glanced down to try to figure out what was wrong with his feet. They were bare, true, so maybe they were worried about the broken glass and cement and what looked like flames? They kind of ached where most of the toenails were missing, plus the stuff done to the bottom of them, but the sharp had turned to dull a while ago. “I can walk,” he offered.

“No, you cannot,” a new voice advised. Female. Soft. Strong. Scary. Teyla. “Did you determine what information they were after?” she asked.

He wasn’t sure if she meant him or the others, but he had intel so he felt it was necessary to share, “I think they wanted gene therapy, but didn’t understand how it worked.”

Yet another voice, this one he recognized as Lorne mainly because he could mostly see him, replied, “The gene therapy thing rings true. I can only make out some of their notes, but there are test subjects and a crap ton of Ancient artifacts in the other rooms. Some of them are fried, and I mean that for both.”

“They want to work our cool shit, but I told them it was ours, not theirs,” John explained. For people who didn’t know how to crossmatch or type, the concept was a little beyond them. Basically, they thought they could just inject some of Sheppard’s blood into the subjects and they should be good to go. When that inevitably failed, and pretty horribly at that, they tried just smearing the blood itself on the crap to see if it would do what they wanted. The problem was that John was their only source for the blood and he had a limited supply.

A bunch more people in colors like Lorne’s and the other guy that he thought might have been called Owen were swarming closer, and he assumed that meant that there was a contingent of Marines helping with this little adventure. He heard a few making Fly Boy comments until they got closer, which was fair since he usually called them Jarheads to their faces, especially during poker night. “How bad is he, sir?” one of the smaller ones asked. Smaller being relative as he still towered over Teyla.

“I’m fine,” he insisted, and it might have been more believable if he hadn’t wheezed and winced at the end. “They want gene carriers. Make sure anyone, natural or therapy, with that sucker is accounted for and, for the love of Ronon’s hair, make sure McKay is nowhere near this place. If he was dumb enough to come in the Jumper, make sure there’s like five of you around him by yesterday.”

“Sir, yes, sir!” came a round of responses.

They were at least semi-likely to do as they were told, unlike certain others. He looked at one of those others and asked, “Do you really plan on carrying me like this the whole way back?”

Ronon simply shrugged. “I could throw you over my shoulder like a sack of tava root if you want,” he offered.

Sheppard frowned and shook his head. “That’d probably not be good for the broken ribs,” he confided.

“For the love of…” Lorne muttered under his breath. “Where else are you hurt, sir?”

John blinked what little he could with false innocence. “Mainly just my heart with the knowledge our new trade partners of the Yatta-whatevers betrayed us, or more specifically me, to this level.”

He felt Ronon tense, mainly because his friend pretty much surrounded every part of him at this point. It was Teyla that corrected, “Yattesha,” absently before her language consisted of not much more than interesting threats and words for various types violence, but in deceivingly polite tones.

He nodded along for the most part even as part of him notice some of the Marines around them take a step back. “Your team is frightening as fuck, sir,” Owen-whatever said in explanation.

“Why else do you think I made them my team?” he asked once Ronon started a surprisingly steady gait back to the gate.

“To save your ass?” the man in question offered, even as Teyla cut in with, “I believe you mean to ask why we accepted you to ours.”

“Is at least the nerdy one somewhat normal?” the Marine on his right asked even as he shot at what looked to be the bad guy that really had liked the heavy things.

There was an echo of scoffs at that one, but it was Lorne who replied, “Let me tell you about the time the nerdy one blew up a solar system…”

John let their voices wash over him as he began to drift. Soon enough, there would be warm blankets and good drugs and familiar rants. Rodney would undoubtedly find something that needed his attention that just happened to be right next to wherever they decided to lock him down for a few days to recover, and Ronon and Teyla wouldn’t even play that game and simply show up on some predetermined schedule. It was kind of sad that his team had a routine for things like this but, then again, they were his team so it kind of made sense, especially with their history.

“Do you think I might get cookies for this?” he asked around a yawn. Eventually, he’d figure out just how he was found and what the collateral damage was to create his grand rescue, but there were more important things on his mind at the moment.

“If you’re good, there might even be pie,” Teyla assured him.

“I like pie,” he replied, even though he knew they knew that already.

“What’s the chance that pie will have a tracking chip in it? Or do we just shoot him with one while he’s high from all the painkillers?” a new voice asked. It was followed by the same voice grumbling, “No, seriously, the gang’s all here, you can back off now. Go. Sit. Stay. Let me just…”

“The Marines took your order very seriously,” Teyla confided. Then, even though he could no longer see her, he could hear the smile when she said, “Much to Doctor McKay’s consternation.”

Now the final missing pieces of a truly whacked out puzzle seemed to slide into place. He felt the Ancient tech of the Jumper hum just beneath his skin in greeting, and he felt the jolt as McKay pushed his way closer to gripe at him about everything from the bad guys to the Marines to his own stupidity. They would be home soon but, for now, this was more than close enough.


End file.
